


The Garden Gnome

by walking_tornado



Series: Garden Gnome [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Gnomes, Inanimate Objects, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:29:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walking_tornado/pseuds/walking_tornado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen’s plan to catch the intruder who’s been trespassing in his garden doesn’t turn out quite as he’d expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden Gnome

**Author's Note:**

> From [this](http://j2-crack.livejournal.com/47732.html?thread=256372#t256372) prompt at J2-crack’s Kettle of Trouble Halloween meme.

  
Jared  


"Shhh," Jared whispered, stroking the dying branch of the boxwood shrub. "You're beautiful and strong, and these scars mean you're a survivor." As he spoke, Jared could see the plant shiver as it regrouped to continue the fight against its insect attackers. Jared did what he could but, with the minimal amounts of rain the garden had received during the summer, the plant didn't have much energy left to fight this latest scourge.  


The arrival of a car in the driveway sent Jared away from the shrub and into the shelter of a large weeping pine, the only thing large enough to conceal him. He looked longingly at the little wildflowers and the tiny patch of young toadstools he'd been encouraging with carefully managed rainwater. Some days he felt more homesick than others.  


" _This_ place?" In the quiet of the afternoon, when all the neighbours were at work, the nasally voice from the front of the house clearly carried over the side fence to Jared in his hideaway. Jared hadn't liked the man the first time he'd visited and liked him less with each subsequent showing. "Mr. Ackles, are you sure this is the property you wanted to look at?" The realtor's skeptical tone made Jared's eyes narrow and, with years of practice, he resisted his natural urge to defend the garden.  


Jared missed the elderly couple who'd owned the property before they'd moved into an assisted living complex. They hadn't paid much attention to the garden, but they also hadn't noticed when he'd occasionally turned on the water in the early hours of the morning to give the plants a needed boost. Ever since the realtor's sign had gone up on the front lawn, months ago, the water had been shut off.  


“I know you said fixer-upper,” the agent was saying, “but . . . there's another property that just came up, a couple streets over, on Maple, for only a little bit more— I mean, it still needs work, but not quite like this, and, if I may say so, the Maple Street bungalow is considerably undervalued —”  


"Yeah, this is it."  


Jared’s head whipped up. That voice was not the real estate agent, nor the young fellow in charge of selling his parent’s place. Jared tried to see around the overgrown hedge, and was rewarded with a view of broad shoulders and light brown hair, cropped short. The man stood a foot taller than the agent, though still not as tall as Jared. No one was, Jared thought, and he couldn’t prevent the flush of shame creeping over his face. He quashed that train of thought before he got himself going.  


“Oh. Well . . . it’s . . . it has character, I guess,” said the real estate guy. “Would you like to see inside?”  


Once the front door shut, Jared cautiously, and with great concentration, peeked into the window, but, through the curtain, he only caught a glimpse of someone walking in the hallway. He couldn’t hear anything more than murmurs and the thud of echoing footsteps on the stairs. Jared wanted a better look at the new guy. This man had shown more interest than any other potential buyer, and Jared chewed his lip. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, he supposed. The place had been on the market a good long while; someone was bound to take it eventually.  


When the prospective owner and the realtor came back into the kitchen, the realtor placed a number of papers on the table. “Mr. Ackles, what do you think?”  


“I like it. You mind?” The man, Ackles, gestured to the window and the realtor stared at him blankly for a moment until he clued in.  


“Sure, sure, open it up.”  


As the gaze of the men fell upon Jared, who still peered in through the window, Jared felt the familiar tingling sensation, like an avalanche of tiny ants traveling through his body at great speed until, between blinks, he could no longer move, frozen in that position, aware but unable to move. No sensations caused pain, and his eyes never felt dry, they simply could not turn away from whatever he happened to be staring at. He could feel a fly settle on his cheek, but it neither tickled nor itched.  


Frozen in the middle of the overgrown rosebush below the kitchen window, Jared was distantly aware of the brush of rose hips and thorns against his rigid chest, but the thorns didn’t scratch nor did they catch on his now-stone clothing.  


The window opened with a grinding squeak, until it shifted and jammed. 

Ackles seemed first to look directly at Jared, and then through him, leaning out far enough to get a good look at the garden. Like all garden gnomes, with a human’s gaze on him Jared had turned to stone. Unlike more mature garden gnomes, Jared, not quite into his third decade, still held on to the vestiges of his childhood invisibility, more unreliable now than it once was, and more difficult to maintain. This afternoon, at least, it held.  


“So, looks like the windows need replacement,” Ackles said, giving it an ineffectual tug.  


The agent shrugged. "Look around, everything needs replacement."  


Jared wouldn't have moved, even if he could have. Another foot, Jared thought, and they would be close enough to kiss. And had Jared still been able to breath, Jensen would be feeling Jared’s breath on his face. In fact, any closer and Jensen's face would smack into Jared, since invisible didn’t mean incorporeal. Fortunately, Jensen stopped before that could happen, though he did frown at the rosebush in front of him, no doubt wondering about the strange person-sized gap among the leaves.  


Jensen opened his mouth, but Jared never got to hear what he had intended to say, because at that moment he got a call.  


“Hello?” he said, and then smiled into the phone, and nodded, even though the person on the other end couldn’t see. “Yeah, looking at the place now. Hang on, Felicia." Jensen turned to the realtor. "Sorry, can I have a minute?"  


“Oh, of course. Wife?"  


"Friend."  


"Oh, that’s fine. Take your time. Here are the papers, if you want to look them over. I’ll be in the living room when you’re ready.”  


Almost as soon as the man stepped away, Jensen put the phone on speaker to free his hands to leaf through the papers.  


“So?" The female voice asked.  


"Yeah, I think I'm going to make an offer."  


The phone seemed to squeal. "Oh, that's wonderful! You'll be only a couple blocks from me!"  


"There's tons of work to do, and I'll have to get a landscaper in to do something about the yard. Could maybe put in a deck and a pool . . ."  


Jared's body had just begun to free itself, now that no one was looking, but Jensen’s words sent a shiver of fear through Jared and he became stone once more. 

* * *

  
Jensen  


When the front door groaned open, and "Jensen?" resonated through the hallway and into the kitchen, Jensen ignored it. Same as he had ignored the doorbell when Felicia had first rung.  


"Jensen! Why didn't you. . . Wait, what the hell are you doing?" Felicia said as she dropped the box she was carrying on the kitchen table. She walked to the opened doorway to peer up at him.  


"Mmph," he said with a raised brow, and kept his teeth firmly clenched on the thin strand of wire. He _almost_ had it.  


"What's that?" Felicia's voice came from much closer than before, and it startled him enough to lose his balance on the stepladder. He threw out a hand to steady himself on the top of the doorjamb. Then he continued setting the wire. Glancing down to ensure that the wire wasn't too visible as it led from the tripwire on the ground, he made the last connection to the bucket of paint he'd set higher up. At night, it would be in shadow and probably wouldn't be seen.  


"Is this for your trespassing ghost?" Felicia smiled sweetly, and Jensen glared. "Still trying to prove he exists? You know, that paint is going to ruin the flower bed, and the, um, environment."  


Jensen shrugged. "It's water-based." He smiled at her noise of disgust as she turned away. “And orange,” he called to her retreating back. “For Halloween and everything.”  


Jensen put away his ladder and looked critically at his creation. Not perfect, but it should be enough to catch whatever asshole kid was coming into the yard and moving things around. The house had been vacant for too long, Jensen thought. In the time that the house had remained empty, the neighborhood kids must have used the walled backyard as their hangout. Jensen was thoroughly sick of having his stuff moved, tools too-often misplaced or taken, and the front light broken. The last straw had been waking up to find that the wooden posts for his future patio had been stolen. Time to let them know that he had moved in and that the vandalism had to stop. Jensen smirked. And what better way to emphasise it that with a bucket of orange paint on Halloween?  


"Okay," Felicia was saying as she set out an impressive series of plastic containers on the kitchen island. "Brought you some leftovers from my potlock games night. The theme was chocolate, and my coworker made some excellent molé. Really, Jensen, it's been weeks. You need to start getting out more." Jensen pulled at a wayward strand of her blue-streaked hair. He smiled as she jumped away.

"Thanks," he said. "But I'm good. Just need some alone time. And you don't have to keep feeding me. I mean, I appreciate the weeks-long housewarming gestures but I'm very capable of taking care of myself. It's not my first house, or my first breakup. I'm a big boy."  


Felicia arched an eyebrow and appraised him critically, pausing dramatically on his crotch.  


"Nah, seen better," she said with an indifferent shrug, then smirked and adroitly evaded an incoming oven mitt before Jensen chased her from the kitchen.  


"You sure you're okay?" she asked him before leaving. "You didn't decorate much. I'd ask you to come with us, but it's our first official date, so . . ."  


"I'm fine," he said. She didn't seem particularly convinced but let it go. 

  


* * *

  


Jensen hadn't expected it to hit him this hard, but Halloween had always been his partner's favorite not-holiday.  


"C'mon, what's more fun than scaring little kids?" Tahmoh would say. He and Jensen would share a look, both sporting matching grins. Theirs had been the haunted house to rival all haunted houses, and while Tahmoh came up with the most creative ideas each year, it was Jensen who won the prize for patience, waiting in the shadows, under blankets, in haystacks, in fake coffins, to scare the crap out of unwary kids who wandered by.  


This year he hadn't even bothered to get a pumpkin, and Tahmoh . . . well, he was thousands of miles away, doing whatever with someone else. Six years, and now gone. Death by a thousand insignificant little things. The adorable idiosyncrasies that he'd loved about the other man had become constant aggravations until he and Tahmoh merely cohabited and unconsciously avoided each other. When Tahmoh met someone else, Jensen was strangely both blindsided and unsurprised. He'd taken a lateral job move to get away—same company, same job, different town—and had taken his things out of their place.  


Few trick-or-treaters came up to the door of the new house. The previous months' vacancy, in addition to the cracked cement of the walkway may have deterred the little ones. Jensen also blamed the light bulb that was always broken no matter how many times he'd replaced it. The shadows gave the run-down house a much more sinister look than its daylight cheery yellow. By nine o’clock he’d only had six people venture to knock on his door, and he knew at least two of those had done so on a dare by their friends who remained safely at the foot of the driveway.  


Jensen glared at the cracked light as he closed the door for the last time. Tonight, he thought. Tonight the vandals would be caught. And then he'd have a few things to say to them.  


Jensen sat down to watch college ball, cheering for his alma mater, but it wasn't the same alone. In half-time breaks, he did series of crunches, listening, to the announcers dissect the first part. He flipped to a porn station during a particularly bad interview, pulled off his t-shirt and proceeded to make himself comfortable. He'd only undone the top button of his jeans when he heard the clatter and bang of the bucket falling over.  


“Yes! Gotcha!” He rushed to the back door and flung it open.  


“Caught you, you little . . .” Jensen had, in all honesty, expected to confront a scared, babbling teenager. He hadn’t expected to find grown man before him—even taller than Jensen—who wore some sort of Santa Claus hat and was now covered in dripping bright orange. Jensen stared. It took a couple more blinks for Jensen to notice the man was shirtless, with his pants undone.The hand around his dick, also dripping orange paint, it left no doubt about what he’d been doing.  


“What do you think you’re doing?” Jensen asked anyway, and he hoped that the anger in his voice both hid his appreciation and masked his smirk.  


The man didn’t answer—didn’t even move. He just stood there dripping and stared.  


“Hey, pervert! Get the hell off my property!” Jensen’s shouts made no difference. The man didn’t move so much as a muscle. “Fine,” Jensen muttered and he closed in on the vandal.  


Jensen’s suspicion that something wasn’t right—other than a peeping tom getting off at his window—increased as he approached, but it was only when he seized the man’s upper arm that he realized the problem. It was a statue. 

  


* * *

  


The surprised exclamation of the kid delivering the papers the next morning woke Jensen and reminded him that he had to do something about the naked, bright orange sculpture by his kitchen door. It was not immediately visible to anyone who stayed by the street, but if they approached the house . . .  


The phone call was expected.  


“I’m so sorry," Jensen repeated. "Like I said, it must have been a Halloween prank. Oh. Of course, I understand, and . . .” Jensen grimaced at the tone that rang in his ear. He would be picking up his daily paper at the foot of his driveway from now on, as the paper carrier had been warned not to approach the house. He didn’t even _want_ a newspaper, since he got his news online, but his mother had thought it would make it seem more homey and had gifted him a subscription.  


He needed to do something about the statue.  


Jensen set a bucket of soapy water on the orange grass that surrounded the stone man. He grabbed the scrub brush, and started to scrub away the paint, starting with the man’s bare shoulders. He'd sprayed the statue with the garden hose last night, before the paint had set, but it hadn't removed everything.  


As he worked, he noticed that the statue was even more impressive in the daylight. He could now clearly make out individual hairs half-hidden beneath the stupid-looking hat. Jensen wondered how in the world a sculptor could work to that level of detail. He thought he could even make out a fingerprint pattern—on the hand that was propped against the wall, not the one wrapped around its cock.  


While Jensen was no art connoisseur, he was certain that this must have been expensive, and he wondered if it had been stolen from a collection. The large scrub brush couldn't reach into the small crevices of the man's fisted hand, so he used a toothbrush. He scowled in concentration as he redoubled his efforts to remove the paint and wondered how huge the fine would be for defacing a work of art. He wasn't certain he could convince the owners that he wasn't the one who'd stolen it. Having successfully removed the orange from the indentation between the statue's closed fingers by using the toothbrush, Jensen took up an abraisive pad and continued.  


Jensen was rattled enough that it took a moment for him to notice that he was, more or less, giving the statue a hand-job.  


That observation was all that it took. Until then, even as he'd passed the scrubber over the hard stone chest and the precisely chiseled, polished abdomen, Jensen had managed to ignore the loosened pants, pulled down in front, and the cock that jutted out, that was both cradled and squeezed by the large hand wrapped around it. Now he couldn't look away. He watched the exquisitely detailed head disappear and reemerge as he cleaned it.  


“That’s hot Jensen,” Felicia said from the kitchen doorway, and only then did he realize that she’d been watching him—for a while it seemed, judging by her half-empty cup of tea. He raised an eyebrow, and she smiled. “You’re spending an awful long time on his . . . attributes.”  


Jensen coughed. “Hard to get the paint out, had to take extra—”  


“No need to explain.”  


“What are you doing here?” Jensen asked.  


"Wanted to see if you caught your imaginary trespasser. But it looks like he left you a present instead."  


Jensen let the toothbrush and scouring pad drop into the bucket.  


"What makes you say it's a guy?" he said as he stretched.  


"Oh please. Women are way more subtle than _that_." She waved her hand towards the masturbating statue and rolled her eyes.  


"Come on, then. Make yourself useful and help me get it inside. I think it's scaring the neighbors."  


Felicia looked at him and crinkled her brow. "Just throw a blanket over it or something, if that's all you're worried about."  


Jensen felt a telltale blush but was reasonably sure that she couldn't make it out from where she stood. "No, I think I should bring it inside. . . Make sure kids don't get an eyeful if the wind blows the blanket off or something."  


"Mmmhmm." Felicia smirked but set her cup down and walked over to help. 

* * *

  


Moving it inside was not an insignificant task. The thing was large and bulky,and very heavy, but despite the embarrassment factor of sporting a hard-on in front of someone who was like a little sister, he couldn't help getting turned on, maneuvering the naked man into the house. By the time they had moved it into the living room, Jensen's hands had skirted every part of the statue, had felt the hard topography of muscles along its back, had cupped it's defined ass, and—no matter how much it pained him at the thought of breaking it off—had discovered its half-mast cock made a very useful handhold.  


That night as Jensen locked the doors and drew the curtains and blinds, he felt its stare.  


"Gonna watch the game, too?" he said as he searched for the remote and hoped it hadn't ended up in the stack of boxes that he finally got around to moving upstairs. He kicked himself at the patheticness of talking to an inanimate object. He made a note to check into his company's sports team sign-up that he'd seen posted in the staff room. Basketball, baseball . . . he couldn't remember and it didn't matter; it was time to expand his circle of friends. Maybe he should join Felicia's games night. Jensen wasn't much for board games, but there was bound to be drinking involved, so it might be fun. When he finally located the remote—accidentally knocked into the couch cushions—the station that came on wasn't the ball game. The screen was immediately filled with moving flesh, and Jensen let the remote fall back to the couch.  


Jensen returned to stand in front of the statue and, telling himself that he was only checking to see whether all the paint had been removed, he slowly passed his hand from its cheek down to its chest, and then further down, pausing a moment before covering its hand with his own. Jensen gave a small sigh of comfort as he removed his constraining jeans. He knelt down and passed his hands over cold stone crevice of the statue's ass, just visible above the slouching drawstring pants. Jensen stroked himself, listening to the slapping and panting sounds from the television. Drawing out the moment, slid his hand ever so slowly to the man's jutting cock.  


With a wry smile, he took the hard cock into his mouth. The coldness of the stone seemed to leach the warmth from his mouth as he passed his tongue along the hardness of vein on the underside of the shaft. He slowly moved to take the full length into his mouth, until his lips touched the stone hand that fisted the shaft. Jensen pulled off with another swirl of his tongue.  


His erection bobbed painfully as he stood up and looked into the statue's half-lidded eyes, and then down to the narrow opening of its mouth.  


"Would be a waste," he muttered to himself. It was potentially the best sex toy he'd ever have. 

  


* * *

  


Jensen closed his eyes as he inched himself backwards onto the sculpture’s lubed cock. It felt like ice compared to the warmth of his body, and Jensen fought his body’s instinctive tightening against the cold stone to make himself relax, gradually impaling himself on the sculpture’s hard phallus. Jensen took stuttering breaths as he inched backwards until he felt the statue’s cool hand at his opening. He let a small whimper escape. Jensen let himself stay there a moment, letting his body adjust, not only to the cold, but to the unforgiving hardness. There was no give at all in the sculpture.  


Jensen moved forward, carefully, and rocked back with a low moan. Before long he had a rhythm going. Jensen kept one hand on the statue to steady it and prevent his motion from knocking it over, and his other hand moved down to fist his leaking cock. With a whimper, he closed his eyes and increased the tempo on his rocking, changing to short quick thrusts back as he approached his climax.  


The stone inside him seemed warmer now. The large body behind him seemed warmer as well. The rocking of the statue seemed less clunky as he fucked himself, as if the statue was thrusting back. With the quickening of his thrusts, it felt as though the statue's hard length grew further, and the added depth of penetration knocked a whimper from him. As he pumped out his release, stars burst across his vision, and his reflexive spasms around the shaft seemed to make it pulse in response. In his post-orgasmic confusion, Jensen couldn't reconcile the sensations. Jensen’s legs weakened but, though he no longer rocked into the statue, the statue pounded into him. The punishing rhythm continued, increased, and then warm hands gripped his hips and pulled him back forcefully as the cock spurted within him.  


It was the low moan behind him that snapped him back to himself.  


Jensen cried out in surprise, and he clamped down against the intrusion.  


“No, don’t turn around,” the voice said as Jensen tried to scramble away. His motion was stopped by a large hand that pushed him forward against the wall and pinned his neck so that he couldn’t turn to see behind him.  


“I’m Jared.” The soft whisper was a puff of air against his ear, a voice that seemed rough, unused but entreating. "Please let me explain."  


"What the hell?!" Jensen wrenched himself around. He felt the wetness of come as it began to run down his leg. “Wait!” Jensen heard, but when he turned around, he found himself face-to face once more with the stone statue. It was no longer frozen mid-masturbation. Instead its hands were outstretched, its lips were frozen open as if paused while talking, and its Santa hat was lying on the floor. The flickering light from the skin flick on television glinted off the statue’s wet cock.  


Jensen rushed from the room into the kitchen. It spoke again as his hands curled around the handle of the largest kitchen knife he could find.  


"Don't be scared! I won't hurt you! I'm Jared. I'm sorry, I didn't mean. . . I'll try not to let you see me. Sometimes I can't control it. But I'll try harder and—"  


The hurried voice cut off as Jensen rushed into the room, then Jensen rocked back on his heels when he realized the room was now empty.  


"Hey! What the hell! Where are you?" He was met with mocking silence and he began scanning the room again. He struck something hard when he walked across the living room floor and fell back, clutching his nose.  


"Fuck!" he said. When he looked up, the room before him was still empty. He reached a hand in front of him and walked slowly forward until his hand encountered an invisible, rock solid chest.  


"What's happening?" he said, but it seemed to have once more become stone. Invisible stone this time.  


Without removing his hand from the statue, or taking his eyes from the spot it occupied, he dug out the phone from his pocket.  


“Hi!” said the cheery voice on the other end.  


“Felicia! Get over here! The statue fucking moved! I saw it! Well, felt it. ”  


“Jensen, you drunk?”  


“It moved. Grabbed me. Hell, it spoke!”  


“Oookay.”  


“Dammit, it’s a friggin' Dr. Who evil statue!”  


“It tried to kill you?”  


“Um . . . no. Not exactly. It . . . doesn’t matter. You believe in this supernatural crap. Get over here!”  


“Hell no! Calm down and tell me what happened. Slowly.” 

  


* * *

  


". . .so how the hell to I stop a murdering statue?"  


“It hadn't struck me as the murdering sort,” Felicia mused.  


“Oh, and you know that how? And it's invisible! How does a statue do any of that?”  


“Wait,” she stopped his story. “He told you not to look back, and then you did and he was a statue?” Jensen hummed his assent, and she continued. "You looking at it now?"  


"Yeah." He had Sharpie'd its chest, and the black scribbles now floated in mid-air.  


“Okay. Jensen, turn around; don't look at it.”  


“No.”  


Jensen winced at the bang of sound that assaulted his ear, and wondered if Felicia had banged the phone on a table or something, to emphasize her point. “If you aren’t going to listen to my expert opinion, then why bother asking for it.”  


“It’s just. I . . .”  


“Turn around.”  


“Fine, you happy?” Jensen said through gritted teeth as he stared at the wall.  


The voice that spoke wasn’t Felicia’s. “Don’t know about her, but I am.”  


Jensen spun around and the statue had assumed a different pose, but it was visible this time. Its pants were done up, the hat was back on, and its eyes looked sad.  


“What the hell is going on?” Jensen yelled.  


"Was that him? Did I hear him?"  


"Yeah. But . . . he's stone again—"  


"Don't look at him, moron."  


Jensen bit back a retort and turned to face the wall again.  


"Thanks," the voice behind him said. "I can't move if you're looking."  


"Oh." Despite all his questions, Jensen couldn't think of anything to say.  


"I'm not a murderer. I won't hurt you," it hurried to reassure him. "I can hear when I'm frozen. Feel things too. Sort of. I heard you telling someone I'm going to kill you! But I won't. I never. I won't hurt you."  


Jensen started to turn around, but resisted the urge. “What are you?” he asked.  


He heard Jared sigh. “I'm Jared. A garden gnome.”  


“What?” Now that he mentioned it, Jared's clothes did look like a giant garden gnome costume, but his size . . .  


“Don’t worry, I’ll leave," Jared said. "And I didn’t mean to scare you, but, I mean, you sort of started it, right? You got off, and it only seemed fair, and I was soo close . . . and you liked it, right?”  


“Jensen?” Felicia’s voice over the phone reminded him that she was listening in, and Jensen really didn’t want her here for this conversation.  


“I need to talk to Jared alone,” he said quickly, and that annoying blush crept in again as he cut off the call.  


“What do you mean, a garden gnome?” Jensen said. "You're sort of a giant, and there's no white beard."  


“Um, well, the beard will come eventually. Another twenty or so years, or thereabouts. And the size . . .” Jared sounded at a loss at how to explain. “I know I don’t look like one. A gnome. It’s a medical thing. I’m kind of a freak." His shoulders slumped and he looked at a spot on the floor, somewhere in between his feet and Jensen's. "I should never have gown past three feet, but . . . I just did. And it caused problems for the others. I was too big. No clothes fit, and I destroyed the toadstool houses, squished things. . . was dangerous. Not intentionally!"  


Jensen hazarded a quick glance back and couldn't doubt the honest, pleading, puppy dog eyes that stared from the immobile body. Jensen returned to watch his spot on the wall.  


"But my family asked me to leave. For everyone's safety,” Jared finished.  


“Damn, Jared—”  


“And they were right! I’m not angry or anything. It made sense. Anyway, no one lived in this garden, and no one came in here at all, so I moved in . . . kept out of everyone's way."  


"Um , . . okay. The stone thing, and, I mean . . . you were invisible!"  


"Yeah." Jared just blinked at him, and then seemed to realize that Jensen needed an explanation. "Well, the adults just turn to stone anytime people might see them." Jared shrugged. "And garden gnomes just sort of blend with the decor. The kids are invisible, of course."  


"Of course," Jensen deadpanned.  


"And since I’m an adult the invisibility is wearing off. Now I have to think about it, and it doesn’t always work, like when I'm. . . excited. But I’ll try harder. Promise. Oh, and please don’t cut down the big pine to put in a pool. I'll return your tools and stop taking stuff, but I’m too big to shelter in the smaller shrubs. And it gets cold. Oh. If you let me stay, that is.” Jared trailed off, waiting for Jensen's verdict.  


“Uhhh,” Jensen said. He suspected he hadn’t understood more than half of what Jared had said, as he tried to merge the new information with the old, and none of it made much sense. And he was getting really tired of staring at that wall. “Okay.” He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d agreed to, but it seemed to be the right thing to say, and Jared’s voice had brightened the next time he spoke.  


“Thanks! And about last night,” Jared began, and Jensen felt his whole body flush. “I really liked that, so, you know, if you ever wanted to, again, that is . . . I can feel, you know, even as stone, so if you like it better that way, without me . . . involved. It’s all good—”  


“No, Jared, I didn’t, I mean, I don’t . . . it was just, I wanted to try, but now I . . .” Jensen snapped his mouth shut on his babbling nonsense and took a moment to organize his thoughts.  


“Oh. Okay.” Jared sounded so sad that Jensen turned around to see what had upset him. He saw Jared, shirtless, immobile, and stone. Jensen sighed in annoyance and turned his back on Jared again.  


“Sorry,” Jensen said, and continued after a moment when there was no answer. “Jared? You there?”  


“Yeah.”  


“Good. Last night. I’m sorry. I wouldn't . . . but I never thought that you were real. I thought I was just using—" He snapped his mouth shut again; those sorts of personal details weren't really things to share with strangers, though maybe they weren't exactly strangers anymore since Jensen still felt the slick of Jared's come every time he moved. The rush of blood to his face made it hard to hear for a moment. "Sorry.”  


“I would have said yes, if it helps.” Jared’s voice was a whisper. “Thought about it enough since you came. Kept forgetting myself, watching you. Couldn't keep invisible. Kept hitting my head against your stupidly low outdoor light trying to watch you.” He paused before continuing. "I thought you liked it, when I . . . Did you like it?"  


“Yes. God, yes! Jared—about the stone thing. Let's say I wanted you to . . . participate. If I want to see you while we. . . How do we do that?”  


“I'm all for participation!" Jared said, and Jensen could hear the enthusiasm. "But you can’t look at me. If you look at me, even just that motion camera, I’ll be stone. Sorry. It's a gnome thing. Can't help it." Jared shoulders drooped, then he looked up, eyes hopeful. "But that could be fun too, right?”  


Jensen thought of the blindfold in his nightstand and smiled. “Oh yeah, it could be fun." The sound of Jared’s laughter made Jensen relax, and the large hand that warmed his shoulder made him shiver. Jared's next half-step forward brought him flush with Jensen, and the insistent pressure of Jared's cock made his interest abundantly clear. Jensen felt Jared's lips trace a warm path from his neck to his shoulder.  


Jensen smiled, closed his eyes tightly, and turned around.

  


END


End file.
